$10,490

183

SzoKiMondoka is an educational system designed to excite children about the world around them, word by word. Our flagship product is an interactive kit. Each kit consists of a 14 minute DVD, an original storybook, our unique word cards and a parental guide. Our pilot kit, “Ovoda” (Daycare) is currently out in stores and Daycares. Our next step is to produce a six chapter (kit) arc which follows the four seasons, family and human.

First we would like to tell you:

Who is SzoKiMondoka for?

What is our ultimate mission?

Where your support goes?

SzoKiMondoka is most appropriate for children beginning to speak through the time they can read alone, roughly ages 2 to 6. SzoKiMondoka is not designed to teach your child to read. What it will do is serve as a fun and interactive catalyst, linking the written language to the child's native culture and their own world around them.

Our ultimate mission is to bring the SzoKiMondoka experience to other cultures and languages around the world – as literacy rates continue to decline, we encourage small children to fall in love with reading by bringing them their authentic world around them word by word.

This past summer we decided to go “all in” and film the raw footage needed for our six chapter (kit) arc. Your support will go directly into producing these chapters and bringing them to the public.

We would like to tell you how this all started and where we are now

Viola is from Hungary and Scott is from New York. While living in New York, shortly after we had our first child we realized a few things. First, we wanted to make sure our children not only spoke Hungarian but were familiar with Viola’s native Hungarian culture. Second, all the visual images, toys and games that our children were inundated with were not always...beneficial, so we wanted to create a way to engage our children with the Hungarian experience in an interactive and fun way. Our aim was to get our kids excited about reading, connect the Hungarian language with the world around them and use native songs and rhymes to enhance their language development. Also, to introduce them to language and basic concepts about the environment and nature, so they would have a relationship with those things from an early age.

After much research we soon realized that the majority of children's media, in countries outside the US, is imported from foreign cultures and dubbed into native languages. Our mission is to create material by that culture, for that culture.
Viola made word cards by hand. The words she used were: colors, body parts, animals, and the newly learnt words as well. She was using them with Zoe, our first child basically like this:

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Zoe loved it! Next was to incorporate Hungarian culture, so Viola put a video together. She filmed everyday activities, added the words on screen and then added Hungarian songs and rhymes. Zoe loved it even more. Other parents wanted copies for their children as well. As more friends and family saw it, they all encouraged us to share this with the world. So we began the journey to make this professionally.

SzoKiMondoka was formed in 2011.The system Viola created incorporates her carefully researched words in different mediums. After years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears (and money), last year, we released our first SzoKiMondoka kit. In every SzoKiMondoka kit you will find:

colorful illustrated word cards – specific for each chapter

a beautifully illustrated storybook by Janos Lackfi (a famous Hungarian children’s writer) each book highlights words from each chapter

a short interactive film (17 minutes) with children's songs and rhymes (the words are also highlighted in the film)

a parental guide with tips, ideas and games

These all work together, with the words from each chapter being the binding element. Depending on the time of day and what you are looking for SzoKiMondoka provides energetic or relaxing activities, dancing, singing, rhyming, experiments, lap time, word recognition games and more. All while children and parents learn, bond and have fun together. The multi sensory learning method ensures a memorable experience for children.

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The first kit we completed was Daycare (Óvoda), which is currently available. It was designed to teach children words that are specifically for daycare. We have given away kits to daycares to use, they all love it. We hold free SzoKiMondoka workshops, as often as we can.

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We recently published our first 2 stand alone books:

MonaMano Stories, Chapters 1 – 3

MonaMano Stories, Chapters 4 – 7.

These books highlight specific words similar to the kits.

One of the qualities that set SzoKiMondoka apart is the inclusion of cultural elements into the learning / entertainment experience for children. We have made sure to include uniquely Hungarian themes into our short films, such as native Hungarian songs and rhymes.

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We are asking for your help to conquer the next phase. Viola has conceived a 6 chapter arc: Family, Water (winter), Air (spring), Fire (summer), Earth (fall) and Human. This past summer we shot the raw footage for all 6 Chapters. Janos Lackfi has written wonderful stories for these chapters. Now we need your help to finish the films and to complete the kits.

SzoKiMondoka doesn’t strive to teach children how to read. Rather we serve as a catalyst for children to connect words, rather than just visuals, to the world around them. We believe in the principal that written language is a profound gateway to building a vivid and complex imagination. We believe that diverse cultures / people will benefit from using a system that introduces words as a fun and active connector to the world around them. Our ultimate goal is to produce these kits in other languages and cultures so that we might share SzoKiMondoka’s opportunities all over the world.

Risks and challenges

One of the biggests challenge we face is trying to convey the SzoKiMondoka message at point-of-sale.

While our SzoKiMondoka books are easy to understand, our kits need a bit more of an explanation. SzoKiMondoka kits are best explained through using them or watching children and parents enjoy them. We have posted videos on our website that show this and when people go to our site we get a great sales rate. But in store, when people are browsing and pressed for time, trying to convey how to use the kits can be tricky. We have recently changed our kit design to try and accomplish this. We have updated our design and included a QR code on the box, which when scanned will show you a short video of the kit in use. We hope this will help explain the kit to customers that are not familiar with the product in retail stores.

Another hurdle is being put in as many prime retail stores as possible. We have a wonderful website and while online sales are ever growing, we know that there is nothing like being is physical stores. We have made extraordinary efforts to get into major retailers. We are now in 3 of the most important chains in Hungary as well as dozens of smaller independent stores. And while getting into these stores is an accomplishment in and of itself, we are now working hard to make sure that we stay there. To this end we are continuing to give workshops as often as we can, in these stores, and promote our products in numerous ways. We know that if we can get these next kits produced then we can truly succeed.

As with most companies we have to depend on others to produce our products. As such, we face the challenges of keeping the costs to make our products down. To combat this we have a wonderful network of designers and manufacturers that are willing to help us because they also believe that SzoKiMondoka has a place in the world.

There are other challenges and risk that we face as well. We want to always create new and interesting products. We have a high standard and we will not ever make products that do not hold to them.

Kickstarter is not a store.

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Original oil paintings by Viola Miller-Ferjentsik and Dr. Miklos Ferjentsik - see them all under Update #19
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